Ozzy Osbourne wrote privately about Yungblud
Ozzy Osbourne and Aerosmith have both served as rock and roll mentors for Yungblud this year, and it has drawn a backlash. While Ozzy publicly praised Yungblud, it turns out this was not just a PR stunt, as he wrote in his new book Last Rites that he loved Yungblud’s performance at Back to the Beginning.
“When Sharon first told me Yungblud was gonna perform, I never realised he had such an incredible vocal range. But f**k me, the guy can sing. Everyone was just bowled over by his version of ‘Changes’. It was phenom-enal. He sang it so well, man.”
In a new interview with Rolling Stone UK about the recent death of his father Ozzy Osbourne, Jack Osbourne reflected on seeing his dad perform for the last time at Black Sabbath’s farewell show “Back to the Beginning” – which took place just two weeks before he passed away.
“I got up there a couple of days early. I saw [Black Sabbath] soundcheck. It was powerful in a way that was surprising,” Jack said. “I knew it was going to be a hard day for the whole family, especially him, and so it was like a living wake. There was a divine perfection to it all in a weird way. It was a full stop. I mean, he saw people he hadn’t seen in 30 years. He got to see friends and fans and just be in his hometown, and it was just wild and really moving.”
Jack went on to say that Ozzy not only had an incredible experience at “Back to the Beginning,” but that the show brought him a great deal of joy in his final days.
“He was so happy. Since he got sick, he became a bit of a social media junkie. He was on Instagram; he was on TikTok; he had YouTube, because he was relatively stationary, so he did a lot of social media scrolling. It was the first time he’d done a gig and then got to see direct response on social media,” Jack explained.
“So every morning he would wake up in England, and you’d get tabloid newspapers, and every day of the week following was some big spread in one of the British newspapers. He just really got a kick out of seeing all the great reviews and all the posts online. He was so stoked. I’m like, ‘Dad, all these reviews are amazing.’ And he goes, ‘A lot of f*cking good that does me. I’ve retired.’”
Speaking about how much work Ozzy put into preparing for the event, Jack said the concert was “huge for him.”
“He was frustrated he couldn’t get out the chair, but I think all things considered, he did a great f*cking job,” Jack said before admitting that it was an emotional night for everybody. “The only thing he said to me was like, ‘Oh, I f*cking started losing it in “Mama, I’m Coming Home.”’ And my response was, ‘Well, everyone was.’”
